


The Last Transformation

by PenneName



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Bruce Banner Needs a Hug, Hurt Bruce Banner, Science Bros, Stark Spangled Banner - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-21
Updated: 2018-05-21
Packaged: 2019-05-09 14:29:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14717867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenneName/pseuds/PenneName
Summary: The transformations are taking their toll on Bruce, and his next transformation might be his last.





	1. Chapter 1

The Avengers’ latest fight was a perfect balance of adrenaline-raising challenge and quick work that lifted the Avengers’ spirits on their ride back to Stark Towers. The quinjet was filler with laughter and revelry as the team recounted their near-misses, quick thinking, power hits.

All except Bruce Banner, who curled up in his seat, asleep. He usually was tired and achey after a transformation, but it was stranger that he could pass out so thoroughly with all the ruckus, stranger still that he remained senseless when they landed and Natasha gently prodded him. The long nights at the lab and frequent transformations must have finally caught up with him.

”Hey, Big Guy, we’re home,” Tony said, snapping his fingers in Bruce’s face.

No response.

“Has Banner taken ill?” Thor asked.

”Tony must be overworking him,” Steve said. But he couldn’t help but feel it was something worse, something serious.

“I’ll bet,” Clint smirked knowingly.

Steve ignored the juvenile teasing, picked up the doctor and cradled him against his chest, letting him stay curled up like a pillbug. It would give his teammates more fodder but it was worth it to get Banner inside, get him comfortable in case something actually was wrong with him.

”Aww. Little guy looks so small against Captain America’s big strong chest,” Tony cooed.

”C’mon, let the doctor keep some dignity,” Clint said, aiming a paper ball at Tony as his camera snapped a picture.

”Tony,” Steve warned, unable to shake the sinking feeling. 

 

* * *

 

Steve had never been in Bruce’s bedroom before. It was nice how Tony set him up with a whole multi-billion-dollar floor of coveted tools and gadgets, but Bruce’s own room was sparse in comparison. It made sense. He dedicated his life to science and didn’t have much outside of it. And with his habit of packing up and fleeing...

Tony must have insisted on the luxurious king-sized bed that Steve set the scientist down in. He couldn’t imagine Banner choosing that for himself. Same with the plush down blanket that Steve pulled over him. At least he’d be comfortable. 

Steve wanted to linger and make sure his teammate was OK, but he knew the longer he stayed the worse the jokes would be. He gently clasped Bruce’s shoulder and left.


	2. Chapter 2

It's not like Tony counted the minutes of Bruce's unconsciousness, except that's exactly what he did. By the time his count passed 18 hours, he was practically vibrating with anxiety. He'd monitored the activity in Bruce's room but then realized how creepy it was that he was watching his lab partner sleep. So he wandered around, trying--and failing--to find something to distract himself until he eventually wound up in the common area, where the others settled in unspoken solidarity. Or nosiness.

"Is Banner up yet? It's been hours," Clint said, casually. Eighteen and change, to be exact, but Tony didn't say that. He envied Clint's casualness. Steve had said "Tony must be overworking him," but it was a joke, a light jab...right? Bruce didn't work for him. They were partners. They could both come and go as they pleased. And Bruce delighted in science even more than Tony. If anything, science was leisure and his job was the Avengers shit. The transformations.  _If anything_ it was Steve--or SHIELD or whatever--that wore Bruce out, and Tony who restored him, and if Captain America ever implied otherwise, Tony would--

"Should we wake him up? Is he ill?" Thor asked. The only questions Tony could grapple with for the past three-quarters of a day.

"I'm awake," said a voice in the doorway. 

"Doctor Banner!" Steve exclaimed, and it wasn't until Tony heard Steve's relief and excitement that he realized Captain America had been just as nervous about their teammate. Bruce looked rumpled like he had  _just_ woken up not a minute ago, but his hands were clasped around a hot mug of tea. So he'd been awake long enough to boil water, make himself a cup, stroll out of bed...but it still seemed like a fog of sleepiness clouded his brain.

"You've been out for eighteen hours and sixteen minutes." Tony hadn't meant to include the minute count, and if it showed how obsessively he'd counted, well, he was a numbers guy.

"Gee, I'm sorry." Bruce rubbed his hand against his neck. "Did I miss anything important?"

"No, but the fight wasn't exactly strenuous," Steve said.

"Well, we can't all age as gracefully as you, Cap," Banner smiled. Steve returned the grin and clarified.

"We were concerned, I mean."

Tony looked between Bruce and Steve, wondering when their dynamic had shift to...casual? Intimate? Had they become friends? That would be good, of course. But it was something Tony would have noticed.

"Have you been feeling ill? Are you fevered?" Thor crossed the room and put a large hand on Banner's forehead. Banner tensed at first, but otherwise bore it with an awkward stoicism.

"No, I--I feel fine now," Bruce said as Thor felt his throat grands. "I _do_ get sick sometimes. The other guy doesn't fight against that. Prevents it, I guess, but if it strikes me, he doesn't fight back." Bruce shrugged. "I'm the one who has to deal with it."

"Eighteen hours is a long time," Natasha said softly. Perhaps Bruce realized how much scrutiny he was under, perhaps he finally felt the intense gaze of ten intense eyeballs. His demeanor shifted, the fog cleared, and he reverted back to his old, familiar self. 

"I'm fine. Really." He dared to shrug Thor's hands off his shoulders, most likely a reflexive brushing-off of human (ish) touch.

"Doctor Banner, if there was something wrong, you would tell us, right?" Steve asked. 

"Yeah, of course. Ton, you wanna put the finishing touches on the AI units?"

Tony had been so busy observing that he didn't immediately realized he'd been addressed. "What? Oh, yeah, sure. Meet you in the lab in twenty minutes?"

"Sounds good," Bruce said. He raised his cup in mock-cheers and departed.

And that was that. Bruce slept, Bruce was awake, Bruce got human sickness sometimes, he was fine. Tony could feel the tension in the room dissolve as Clint, Natasha, and Thor dispersed. Nothing to see here.

"Really?" Steve asked.

"What?"

"You're gonna tinker with your gadgets?"

"He's the one who suggested it! You heard him!" Tony exclaimed, unsure why Captain America should be on  _his_ case. Anyway, Bruce was fine. Everyone had days where they crashed, even Tony. True, it was usually after a week-long bacchanal, but...

Steve shook his head and left.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

Tony hated being right. 

At least, he hated being right when it meant his friend and teammates were endangered. It was the transformation, not the lab work, that affected Bruce. Unfortunately, they had to find that out in the middle of a fight when the big green rampage machine suddenly dropped and shrank. 

Luckily, the fight was more or less winding down. Tony didn't like to think about what might have happened if they'd lost their best fighter  _and_ put Bruce in the middle of a war zone. He didn't like to think of the guilt that would have consumed Bruce, either.

 Captain America knelt beside his fallen teammate and covered him with his shield, protecting him from dangerous blasts. “Stark! Take him back!”

“On it,” he confirmed from his suit, swooped down and, with barely a pause, picked Bruce up.

* * *

 

Three hours later, Steve and Tony gathered in the med center, eyes dancing around all the machines and computers keeping their friend alive and monitoring him. Tony could comprehend them, but they meant nothing to Steve except that his friend was sick.

And, strangely enough, Tony  _ wasn't  _ looking at the gadgets. He hadn't moved his gaze from his friend's bed. He wore his tinted glasses and kept a fist in front of his mouth but he couldn’t hide his concern. Or his tenderness.  Steve wanted to clasp his shoulder or pat his back and tell him everything would be OK, that Banner would pull through, but that would mean letting Tony know that he was broadcasting his feelings, and then he would put up all his walls and defenses. 

Instead, Steve let the words of Tony’s specially-picked, ultra-discreet doctor wash over him. The specifics and technicalities were beyond Steve’s grasp. Despite all the medical jargon, the bottom line was clear: "His health and strength will continue to plummet with each transformation. Another transformation might kill him."

All the tension left Tony’s shoulders. His hand dropped from his mouth and he finally, finally looked away from his lab partner.

"Then he won't transform anymore," Tony announced, as if it were the simplest decision in the world. And it was. Of course it was. Maybe not as simple to Clint or Natasha or Thor...maybe not even to Bruce. But to Tony and Steve, the choice was clear. They'd keep their teammate and leave the Hulk.

Tony put an arm around the doctor and took her aside to discuss something, and then Tony shook her hand and sent her on her way. 

It's what Bruce wanted before they swept him away: a life without the other guy. It was unclear if that's what he still wanted, with a team to protect. If he’d be content to sit on the sidelines and tinker or if he’d flee again. 

And it was unclear whether he could keep the other guy at bay for an entire lifetime. Steve believed in Banner. At first, Steve was wary and he’d let it show, had gotten off on the wrong foot, but now he knew that no other Avenger--no other  _ person-- _ had the self-restraint that Banner had. His diminutive frame held all the emotional and mental strength that the Hulk physically had. 

There was, of course, the other issue...the “I-put-a-bullet-in-my-head” issue. It wasn’t hard to imagine Banner getting so low, even though Steve didn’t want to picture it.  _ He can’t possibly still want to kill himself,  _ Steve thought. But he finally had a way out if he did. 

Before he realized what he was doing, Steve approached the bed and squeezed Banner’s hand. It was the standard, clinical squeeze of a comrade-in-arms, reminding himself that his teammate was still alive. All of them were. They handled the blip admirably, barely breaking pace, and gotten Banner to safety. 

“He’s going to be fine,” Tony said, a puzzled look on his face. “All he has to do is  _ not  _ transform and he’s already an expert on that.”

Steve looked at Tony blankly. He couldn’t tell if Tony was in denial, deluding himself, or merely forgotten his friend’s confession. Either way, Steve decided not to bring up the fact that Bruce might want to kill himself. He couldn’t form the words. The mere insinuation... He didn’t know how Tony would react.

“Look, I know some of that stuff went over your head, but it’s a good prognosis.”

Steve swallowed and looked away.

“What, you’re upset about losing our heavy hitter? ‘Cuz I assure you one Bruce is worth ten Hulks, and if anyone else has a problem--”

“ _ No. _ ” Steve glared at Tony.  The thought had barely crossed his mind.  “I think you’re making it seem easier than it is. The no-transforming thing.”

“Bruce had a lock on it before we got to him.”

Steve sighed. If Tony didn’t think Bruce’s mental state was an issue, then maybe it wasn’t. Tony knew him best of anyone.

* * *

Tony took Bruce's knight and rook the same way he did everything else: with a flourish. "Looks like your mind isn't as sharp as it used to be."

It was a low blow. Three days later and poor Banner was still laid up in a hospital bed, looking mousey and sick, propped up on pillows, with nothing to tinker with to pass the time. Instead of working on machines, machines worked on him. They still hadn't told Bruce what was wrong. Nor had they told the team. Steve and Tony figured it would be best to wait to tell Bruce first, then the others, and he'd only woken up a day ago.

But Tony wasn't going to treat him like an invalid. Teasing him was a reminder of the normal life he'd soon return to.

"Checkmate," Bruce said.

"Wh--what--" Tony stared at the board, retracing his steps, trying to find a way out. He could accept being in check, but  _ checkmate?  _ How did he let that happen?

"Rematch?" Bruce said, hands hovering above the board, waiting for Tony's begrudging permission to reset the board. 

But they’d played several rounds (no, Bruce had not won all of them), and Bruce had been awake for far longer than Tony anticipated. What Tony planned: a couple of rounds, then tuck the little guy back into bed (figuratively). What Tony got, instead, was insistent banter and scientific discussions over rounds and rounds of chess--which would have been fine if Tony didn’t think Bruce was stubbornly forcing himself to stay awake. And he’d enabled it because it was nice to have Bruce back after a nerve-wracking three days of unconsciousness.

"You look peaked," Tony said, quickly putting the pieces away.

"Peaked? Who the hell says peaked?" Bruce indignantly clutched the chess board.

"It's how you look," Tony said, grabbing the pillow Bruce was propped up on and gently maneuvering him down.

"Don't be a sore loser!" Bruce grabbed at the pillow, but Tony held it out of reach.

"Am I interrupting something?" Steve asked from the doorway. Bruce snatched the pillow back and positioned it underneath himself.

"No," Bruce said at the same time Tony said "He's going back to bed." 

"Look at how tired he looks. Tell him to get some rest. Command him." 

"I've been sleeping for three days! Captain, can I play with someone who can lose with grace?"

Steve smiled. The lab partners were unbearably cute together in a way they weren't with anyone else. They were coupley, even though they weren't dating...Well, actually no one was certain they  _ weren't. _

"'fraid I wouldn't be a fun opponent no matter how much grace I had. You'd beat me in three moves." Steve walked in and grinned at Tony. Tony had done a pretty good job at hiding his mother hen tendencies under the guise of sore losing, but Steve could tell. He was surprised Bruce couldn't. Then again, they all had the tendency to forget how stubborn Bruce could be, how stubborn he  _ needed  _ to be to keep the other guy at bay.  So if someone was forcing him to bed--over a chess game or otherwise--he would certainly fight back.

"How about a movie?" Steve offered. He named a few over Tony's disgruntled protests. Once Steve and Bruce finally decided, Steve sat at the edge of Bruce's bed. "Mind if I scoot in?" 

Bruce shrugged, shifting over, and Steve put his legs up. Even though they weren’t touching, it was strangely intimate. Clint would probably joke that they were just two bros snuggling and watching a movie. Well, three, with Tony in a chair by Bruce's bedside. 

"You trying to poach my lab partner?" Tony asked.

"Wouldn't dream of it," Steve responded easily. For a genius, Tony could be an idiot most of the time. Steve didn't even know what movie they decided on. He knew that his body radiated warmth, and that Bruce's head was dipping, and by the end of the opening credits Bruce was asleep. Bruce shifted on his side--careful to avoid touching Steve, even when he was unconscious--and curled up in the smallest possible ball. Steve didn’t know if it was a long-developed habit, or something from the illness.

_ Tony would know _ , Steve thought with a mischievous smirk to himself.

“You manipulative devil.” Tony sounded almost impressed. Steve shot him a grin.

“More flies with honey.”

“Well, aren’t you the sweetest,” Tony muttered. And maybe there was a hint of...jealousy, something, in his voice. The knowledge that he could be the one next to Bruce if he’d thought of it first. And Steve doubted Bruce would be so careful not to touch him. Only Tony was allowed to touch Bruce regularly, and Tony would probably keep a protective arm around his lab partner, far from snuggling but closer than Steve would ever get. Again: if he’d thought of it. 

Steve took one last look at Bruce to make sure he was sleeping soundly before planting his feet back on the ground.

“Well, I’m gonna head out.” He resisted adding a smug  _ My work here is done.  _

“Woah, hey, don’t let a movie go to waste. You got a lot of pop culture to catch up on."

Steve sat back down. He was astonished Tony asked him to stay--he was leaving to give them privacy, after all. Tony asking meant something. For the life of him, Steve couldn’t figure out what. But Tony wouldn’t ask lightly. 

Besides--Steve would never say it out loud-- he was comfortable. There was something soothing about ensuring his friend got a good sleep. There was even something soothing about Tony’s company. “You up for a game of chess?” Steve offered.

“I thought you’re not a fun match.”

Steve shrugged. “I figure you and I would be more evenly matched than me and  _ Doctor  _ Banner.”

Tony chucked a pawn at Steve's head.


End file.
